July 13, 2013

A decade ago, when the U.S. Department of State named Hindi as one of the world’s must-learn languages, it was mainly aspiring government servants who were keen to pick up the Indian tongue because doing so gained them bonus points in the U.S. foreign service exam. The Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Central Investigative Agency also offered better jobs to employees who had learnt the language.

But with India poised to be a global superpower, experts say the demand for Hindi classes has shot up in recent years, particularly in the U.S.

“Definitely, more and more programs and courses relating to India, specifically Hindi, have come up over the last few years,” Richard Delacy, a Hindi professor at Harvard University, said in a recent interview with The Wall Street Journal.

Last year, for instance, the student body of Medford-based Tufts University in the U.S. demanded Hindi be made part of their curriculum after a campus survey found at least a fifth of 1,100 students would opt for it as a foreign language.

Popular schools, including Illinois-based Northwestern University and The Ohio State University, recently opened applications for Hindi professors.

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